Once Were Warriors: visual analysis
- Students watch an introductory clip from Once Were Warriors before being handed the worksheet.
- Students are given the worksheet and are allowed time to look over the questions and begin to answer them.
- Teacher may replay clip for students up to three times.
- Remind students that this is an exercise in interpretation which draws on both the text and students' prior knowledge and experiences. There is no single correct answer, though it is important to explain to students that they need to make logical connections between the text and their interpretations of its meaning.
NOTE: There is no single correct interpretation of a text, and it can be interpreted at different levels (more or less 'deeply').
However, some interpretations are simply incorrect. Students need to make logical connections between text and their interpretation of its meaning.
Task a) Make three interpretations about the people shown in the scene. Give a piece of evidence (visual/verbal/sounds etc) from the film extract to illustrate each interpretation.
It was a common response for students to make connections between poverty and behaviour. Students linked poverty with truancy and social dysfunction: all negative associations.All trial students used visual descriptors because the text does not include any dialogue. Only one student used the music on the soundtrack to illustrate their interpretations for this task. Most students gave general rather than specific interpretations of character.
Interpretation: Bad family background, upbringing.
Evidence: They're dealing drugs. Negative feel to the music when they come into the picture.
Interpretation: The people have unhappy lifes.
Evidence: People graffiting normally means they are angry, misunderstood.
Interpretation: The woman is poor.
Evidence: Walking home with trolly (no car), cheap clothes.
Interpretation: Hard life.
Evidence: Living beside motoway, house in disrepair, spending money on cigarettes, heaps of people (living together)
Task b) Explain what each of the features in the left hand column represent. What do they tell us? (* answer provided)
| What? | What does it tell us? |
| Tagging on buildings | Crowdedness, turf wars, lack of respect for property/landscape, disaffected youth, low socio-economic area* |
|
Tagging being done in broad daylight
Lack of respect, for property, others, rules etc most common response. A few students mentioned a lack of respect for their environment. |
Breakdown of law and order*
Poor place where police have bigger issues. No cops to catch them, no respect, think they can't get caught, low income area, moneys a problem. No cops, don't care, their area, not afraid of the consequences, worthless (not valuable) place to tag. |
|
Teenagers hanging out on corner Most students interpreted that the teenagers were unemployed, out of school, had a lack of motivation and no money. One student commented that it was a normal representation of teenagers. |
Unemployment, lack of direction and motivation*
Unemployment, poverty, boredom with their lives, no ones trying to keep them off the streets. |
|
The change in sound/music
Students identified the change in music as representing contrast between the billboard and the urban setting. |
Dissonance introduces a change to harsh reality*
Contrast. It used to be like this but now its all hard and man made metal. A representation of whats being shown visualy, (e.g from a pretty landscape, to a trashed motorway). |
| Fencing |
Lack of community ownership and value*
Budget, cheap area, derelict. Not all child-friendly. |
|
Proximity to motorway Most students identified the undesirable nature of living next to a motorway, and linked this to monetary value. |
Undesirable area* Crowded, not enough space, bad place to live, probably cheap. It is quite a cheap area, so council chose to build motorway through because of its insignificance. |
| Dirt and cracked concrete |
Lack of community services and civic pride*
Council has low amount of money to repair. A poor and dysfunctional area where industrial factories linger. |
|
Beth Heke alone pushing a trolley Unlike all the negative associations students interpreted from the text in the rest of the assessment, they made positive interpretations of Beth Heke's character as a strong, independent woman. |
Carless, poor, independent*
She is used to the atmosphere & does not feel afraid or unsafe.
Shows she is the mother figure who is expected to do things. It shows a lack of partner-help. Doesn't have a car, has to walk everywhere. |
Task c) Describe all the ways in which the film shows the transition from a landscape to an urban setting.
This task gets students to analyse the construction, components, and techniques used in the transition (from the scenery on the billboard to the urban scene), to get them thinking about what this transition might actually represent (Task d).
Trial students who gave thoughtful responses used a mix of visual descriptors, film techniques such as camera shots and angles, as well as sound to describe the transition.
By pulling away and enlarging the shot (letting us see the full picture).
The first shot was of the mountains and lake and it was very serene and the music aswell, then you hear a really loud horn and the camera slowly pans out and you see that it’s a billboard representing energy. The camera shows you a really loud motorway and factories.
1) The music changes from quiet to loud and the cars in the background become more prominent and a guitar does loud music. 2) The landscape which you thought was real is revealed to be a picture of the past and not a reality. 3) The far off landscape is different from the picture but also similar- like they started out the same.
Peaceful music, showing a mountain with water & trees, then you hear trucks & car noises then the camera slowly moves to the side to show its just a billboard above a motorway.
- One student broke their answer into the categories: Noise and Scenery.
Noise: Natural wind, birds, river, the flute.
Motorway Mayhem and lowlifes up to no good, Electric guitar.
Scenery: Water, Hills, trees, Grass, Blue Sky.
Concrete buildings, concrete motorway, cars, people, smoke, leaky taps, fencing, graphiti.
They followed this up in task d) with the response that this represents:
The natural changes Human Kind have control of.
Task d) What does this transition represent?
The most basic and common answer was a transition from a fantasy to reality.
Fantasy to reality. The switch from a pretty sight, to a more urban & city like state.
I think it starts off representing individuals or societies dream, it starts of with a billboard that isn't reality but people want it to be then the transition represents how it changes from a dream to reality and what's individuals & societies reality.
Students also commented on what it represented about the scene.
That life isn't perfect.
That it wasn't a picture perfect place.
An environmental theme was a common response.
How beautiful the land was to how it is now graffiited, polluted etc.
How the landscape could have actually been similar here now. But because we cut down trees & don't care we have lost it.
The change between old and new and the harsh reality that that change might not have been for the better. Also the choices we have made that have resulted in the loss of that environment.
As highlighted in the responses below, some students made connections between the past and the present, but none managed to elaborate on the socio- political elements of this change. Though some students did explore this in a group discussion following the assessment.
How our world was once and what it has turned into.
Contrast. What used to be and how that’s changed this great image we have in our minds and cool, concrete reality. What could have been and how we ruined it.
- Discuss the socio-political and cultural factors that caused the change that is represented in the transition from a landscape in the billboard to the urban setting of the film.
- What has caused this change between the past and the present that students have mentioned?
- How does this explain student's interpretations of the characters in task a)?